For Jason to be able to live with me in Sweden, we have to go through an immigration process. He has to apply, answer a whole lot of questions. I have to answer the same questions. Then one part of the application process is an interview at a Swedish embassy or consulate.
We chose HongKong because there isn't one in Taiwan (due to that the Swedish government doesn't have the courage to recognize Taiwan as a country) ... Anyway...
So.. I bought the flight tickets, and I forgot to write my middle name on the ticket. After spending about 3 hours on the phone, I had fixed this little glitch..
On the day for the travel we got up very early. At 6.30am we were at the bus station and close to 8am we was at the airport.
We wrote in the ticket number and the result... Talk to a service counter personal.
Well we talked to one, and that's when we discovered that I had miss read the ticket info. The plane was leaving in 15 minutes. I had read the landing time as the takeoff time. We missed our flight.
This is Jason being quiet and irritated with me.
I can understand him being irritated.
They put us on a standby list, but they informed us that ALL the tickets to HongKong that day was sold out.
We didn't make the next flight and after talking to the Swedish consulate we had until 4pm before it would be to late for the interview.
I was felt really really bad and that's when I came up with the idea to buy a new ticket for Jason so that he could go to the interview by himself.
We found 2 tickets for the price of 21.000 NT. (Taiwanese dollars = about 4800kr = 480 €)
That plane was delayed 40 min. Arriving HongKong we had to circulate above the airport for another 20 min. At this time we had about 1 hour to make it through security, take a high speed train to HongKong Island and from there to take a cab to the consulate.
We were sitting as far back as we possibly could have, so when they turned off the seat belt sign, everybody was before us.
Security... about 750 people before us.
Taxi line... about 5 people before us.
On the street... A traffic jam.
Eventually when it was 5 min past 4pm, the taxi driver says - it´ll be faster if you run.
So we payed him and then we ran.
Well the consulate was close by. I ran past it, but Jason saw it and into the building we ran. Elevator up to the 22th floor.
Arriving we see no one at the front desk. I ring a bell, and I ring it again and again and again. A grumpy looking Swedish woman, about 50 years old, passed in the corridor and then a Chinese woman comes. You are here now. You can relax now.
And so they started to interview Jason and asked me to stay at the reception room.
It turned out I had written my own address wrong in the application form. But I could explain it to them, and in the end the woman thought that our chances were good.
Just before leaving the consulate I was an ad about a Swedish store in HongKong. I so wanted to go there. Maybe they would have salted Licorice.
Stay awake
Love Ove
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